An Unforgivably Brief History of Australian Theatre with Dr. Rob, La Mama ***1/2

THEATRE – LIVE STREAMED

Created and performed by Robert Reid

At La Mama Theatre,  until Sun 20 Feb 2022

Live streamed https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNfEn7nhPVU (show recorded on 18 Feb 2022.)

Reviewer: Kate Herbert (review of recorded show)

Stars: ***1/2

90 minutes

Robert Reid, An Unforgivably Brief History of Australian Theatre, pic from recorded show

 

Robert Reid, AKA Dr. Rob, delivers his entertaining, quirky, mischievous and wildly informative solo performance / lecture at a machine -gun pace, peppered with Aussie theatre jokes and topical and historical references that the impeccably informed audience at La Mama gets in the blink of an eye.

 

An Unforgivably Brief History of Australian Theatre is just what it says on the packet – a potted history of Aussie theatre. But the difference between Dr. Rob’s version and any other whip around the topic in a lecture theatre near you, is that it includes plenty of previously ignored, omitted or unknown facts, events, companies, artists and theatrical disasters. All of those make this a charming, witty and surprising performance.

 

Accompanied only by his trusty PowerPoint with photos, info and witticisms

Dr. Rob divides our Australian theatre history into five easy pieces, sorry, eras:

1.     First Nations era – performance prior to colonisation

2.     Convict era – performance by transported convicts

3.     Actor manager era – featuring the spread of physical infrastructure

4.     Professional Commercial era

5.     Government subsidised era

 

The first two eras – First Nations and Convict – are eye-openers for most of us as many or most of the history has been hidden or lost. What follows in eras 3,4, and 5 is the evolution of theatre based on the English model and imported with the colonists, settlers, incomers and interlopers.

 

Australia struggled to find its own voice but, eventually, our homegrown theatre veered away from its early cringing and kowtowing to England. New plays, writers, producers, companies, directors and modes of creating and staging theatre emerged almost every decade of the 20^th century. There are too many to list here.

 

It takes Dr. Rob a rapid-fire 90 minutes to cover the entire chronology and he barely touches the surface. He apologises for omitting anything or anyone west or north of Melbourne and Sydney. Never fear! Dr Rob is willing to tour and create a show tailored to your region!

 

The tragedy is that, in the last era of government subsidised theatre, Australia’s enormous growth and evolution in the theatre is now waning as savage government funding cuts continue to decimate the theatre sector. The wholesale closure of theatres for almost two years of the Pandemic, suggests Dr. Rob, may have sounded the death knell for government subsidised theatre in Australia.

 

What will the next era bring? Who bloody knows! What we do know and Dr. Rob. insists, is that Australian theatre workers will not be stopped. We’ll rise up again and produce something worth seeing, doing and achieving – something of which we can be proud.

 

All hail the Australian theatre!

 

By Kate Herbert

 

Watch the recorded show here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNfEn7nhPVU